I had the privilege this morning to participate as a panelist in the Politico Pro Health Care Breakfast Briefing. My fellow panelists were Walter Dellinger, Tom Goldstein, Neal Katyal, and Nina Totenberg. I enjoyed the morning and think we covered a lot of ground.

Nobody (including me) predicted victory for the challengers. Walter Dellinger predicted (and Neal Katyal agreed) that the Court would uphold the mandate’s constitutionality, that it would not be 5-4, and that Chief Justice Roberts would probably write for the Court. Tom Goldstein also predicted victory for the federal government, but thought that we might see a per curiam opinion. Nina Totenberg predicted that Justice Scalia would vote to hold the minimum coverage provision unconstitutional, but declined to speculate about the outcome overall. I declined to speculate about particular Justices, but expressed the view that the Court would vote to uphold the mandate’s constitutionality if it reached the merits of that issue. As many others have observed, the provision’s challengers go in with what looks to be a 4-1 deficit. The likelihood that they will run the table on the remaining four Justices seems low, especially in light of how the litigation played out in the lower courts. That said, “the experts” were wrong about Lopez and Morrison. Time will tell.

The main issue on which I may have viewed things differently from the other panelists was on the Anti-Injunction Act. While I believe it is more likely than not that the Court will reach the merits of the individual mandate, I think that the textual arguments for the Anti-Injunction Act’s applicability are strong and that the possibility of a majority voting to find the AIA applicable is greater than 20%. My recollection is that at least some of the others (particularly Nina Totenberg and Neal Katyal) thought that the Court would be much more likely to favor prompt review out of a belief that the country needs an answer from the Supreme Court now.